


just waiting ‘til the shine wears off

by pixiepower



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Being Lost, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Frottage, M/M, Minor Injuries, archaeology AU, this is largely based on me never having seen the mummy but admiring the aesthetic and idea, university professors/academics/scholars boogyu, vague timestamp. let’s say 1930s with modern sensibility but fuck if it matters, well....... sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:42:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21691138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiepower/pseuds/pixiepower
Summary: The sentiment is appreciated, as Seungkwan can barely contain his excitement. Finally, a well-funded excavation fielded by, from what he could tell from skimming his briefing pamphlet, a top team of academics and professionals, getting to do what he loves and make something of it, greater than himself.After all that, how he managed to end up on a field team equipped with not much more than an incandescent flashlight and Kim Mingyu is absolutely beyond Seungkwan, yet simultaneously completely expected. Life has not been known to cut him a break, not for a long while.
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Kim Mingyu
Comments: 18
Kudos: 150





	just waiting ‘til the shine wears off

**Author's Note:**

> title from “lost!” by coldplay.
> 
> thank you, pey, for always reaching out your hand. you are more than i could have ever asked for.
> 
> chris — you are unforgivably important to me. i can’t find the words, but i hope this is a good start. happy birthday, congratulations, and i am so proud of you. 💛
> 
> •
> 
>  **note:** there is some mention of blood and injury in this work, but it is minor, incurred due to the elements (not violence), and not heavily described. if you need additional warnings please do not hesitate to reach out!

When the first red beetle skitters over his foot as he walks through the first cavern, Seungkwan wonders why he agreed to do fieldwork out here in the first place, but he figures it’ll be worth the trouble when he gets to compile his anthropological archaeology research and earn the natural history museum its second grant.

The prep was easy enough, the paperwork and the permits, even the vaccinations and the physical with Seungcheol. His whole academic career has been leading up to this, anyway, fighting tooth and nail to be taken seriously not only by his peers, but his mentors and his contemporaries in the field, by his professors when he studied, and eventually, his students. It felt right, like he was meant to do this.

_ “Hansol-ah, Hansol-ah!” Seungkwan yells, arms wrapped around his folio to keep his papers from flying out into the campus square as he dashes toward his friend. _

_ A stray pamphlet flutters to Hansol’s feet and he grins when he picks it up and replaces it atop Seungkwan’s haphazard pile. “Three guesses?” he asks before Seungkwan can get a word out edgewise, rolling his neck in a stretch as if to prepare. _

_ Seungkwan sighs impatiently but allows it. “Quickly!” _

_ Hansol pretends to ruminate. “Your cordwainer has new wingtips in.” _

_ “Be serious!” _

_ “All right, let’s see. Chan gave up being Jisoo’s assistant and is finally going to work with you,” Hansol offers, an eyebrow raised half-hopefully. _

_ Wistful, and now unfortunately thinking about a world in which that were true, Seungkwan mutters, “No. This game isn’t fun anymore, can I just tell you now?” _

_ Letting out a laugh, Hansol nods. “Two is now three. Thank goodness you aren’t an applied mathematics scholar. Go on,” he smiles. _

_ Seungkwan pulls a face. Nothing against applied mathematics, but, dear God, he couldn’t imagine crunching numbers all day, even if it were for engineering or industry. The only abacus he wants to look at is the  _ supan  _ Minghao got him for Christmas last year, and it sits at a place of pride on his desk clear of the rest of his clutter. _

_ But that’s beside the point.  _

_ The point being, “The committee has asked me to take part in an excavation in the caverns out in Danyang-gun! Some antiquarian out there discovered an artifact, some homewares, I think, and tried to peddle them off as curios, but it caught the interest of the department and they think it aligns quite closely with my research! I leave in two weeks, over the first part of the summer holiday.” _

_ “Oh, that’ll give you the lift you need to reach out to the foundation for the grant, right? That’s amazing, Seungkwan, I’m so happy for you,” Hansol says sincerely, clasping what he can of Seungkwan’s free hand. _

_ The sentiment is appreciated, as Seungkwan can barely contain his excitement. Finally, a well-funded excavation fielded by, from what he could tell from skimming his briefing pamphlet, a top team of academics and professionals, getting to do what he loves and make something of it, greater than himself. _

After all that, how he managed to end up on a field team equipped with not much more than an incandescent flashlight and Kim Mingyu is absolutely beyond Seungkwan, yet simultaneously completely expected. Life has not been known to cut him a break, not for a long while.

They’re at least able to work separately, even if Seungkwan can hear Mingyu humming under his breath from where Seungkwan drops his excavation markers because of how sound carries in the cave. Frankly, Seungkwan has been proud for two years of his ability to reduce Kim Mingyu to background noise. After being a panelist on Mingyu’s all but disastrous faculty interview, Seungkwan needed to distance himself from the mutual mortification and distaste. And he can be professional, they can work near one another. It’s ‘with’ that might pose a problem or two.

So when there’s a tremor underfoot, followed by the thunderous sound of rocks and debris sliding down to the cave entrance and Seungkwan watches the second red beetle of the day spread its shimmering wings and flitter up and out of the only opening in sight, ten centimeters wide and fifteen meters up, a few hours later, Seungkwan rapidly decides all this might no longer be worth the trouble. Or threat to life.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Seungkwan says despairingly, using the butt of his flashlight to try and chip at the crumbled rockslide to no avail.

“The only way out is through.” Mingyu’s voice is sure, but a little small, and Seungkwan knows it’s because his own face is furious. He also knows that Kim Mingyu knows that that is the very last thing he wants to hear, especially from him.

Mutters Seungkwan, “You have got to be fucking joking.”

When he turns around, Mingyu is sitting on the floor, too-long legs spread wide like a gymnast’s stretch, and Seungkwan sort of wants to slam his face into the rock-covered opening, see if that’ll do the trick. “Hand me your bag,” Mingyu says. 

Seungkwan clutches his satchel closer to his chest and frowns. “Come again?”

“We don’t know how long we’ll be in here. Hand me your bag, we need to take inventory.”

Surprisingly level-headed, if a little rudimentary. Seungkwan reluctantly hands Mingyu his bag, but keeps his eyes trained on him as he lays out their belongings into the sunstriped section of the floor. 

Mingyu smooths out their map onto the ground between his spread legs, tracing pathways with his fingers. It only takes a few minutes, Mingyu murmuring softly to himself and scribbling in his pocket journal, marking quietly and then folding things back up closely to how Seungkwan originally had them organized. Which is the least he can do, frankly.

“Your canteen is full, and I have two bags of mixed nuts, one for each of us. That should last us as we move south until we hit the next checkpoint, where we’ll be able to head up the approved entry drop zone and make it back to camp,” Mingyu says, ostensibly writing the plan down in the little journal, Seungkwan eyeing the camel-brown smallness of it dwarfed in his hand.

It’s hard to disagree, so Seungkwan doesn’t; he presses his tongue into the side of his cheek and bites it back, bites back his frustration and his anger and, worst of all, most  _ importantly _ of all, his rising fear, and says, “Okay. Then we better get going.”

The darkness is all-encompassing, despite the count of Seungkwan’s watch only striking ten in the morning. The incandescent bulb in his flashlight only reaches so far in front of them, and Mingyu has to slow his long strides to stay within its rays, steps ahead of Seungkwan.

The lack of sun renders everything humid and dank, mildewy water dripping down the tunnel walls, and Seungkwan hates that he’s already sweaty in his cotton button-down, even after only an hour and a half or so of mostly quiet walking. He puts the pommel of the flashlight in his mouth to roll up his sleeves a little, knows the light swings down toward his feet when he looks at his sleeves, causing Mingyu to turn his head to see why. Mingyu’s eyes widen at the sight of him, and he opens his mouth and shuts it, swiveling his head back around without saying whatever is  _ clearly  _ on his mind about Seungkwan’s choices, or asking if he should hold the light instead. He slows a little, though, and falls into step with Seungkwan.

Seungkwan’s heart rate is rising, he can feel it, and there’s this itch under his skin that he can’t quite figure out how to scratch. He glances up at Mingyu’s face, which is perfectly neutral.

“Listen, Mingyu-ssi—”

“Hyung is fine,” Mingyu interrupts, offering Seungkwan a small smile. “We’ve worked together long enough.”

Long enough, too long, Seungkwan can hardly tell the difference at this point. “I’d rather not.”

He tries to ignore the tightness in his stomach at how, in the light of Seungkwan’s flashlight, Mingyu’s still smiling but his eyes go flat like a little candle extinguishing.

“That’s fine, Seungkwan-ssi. If it makes you more comfortable.”

“I’ll be frank with you, on the whole, I am not very comfortable right now, and I can’t discern whether that has more to do with present company or the fact that, oh, I don’t know, we’re  _ stuck in a maze of caves.  _ So forgive me for being a little tense.”

As soon as the words leave Seungkwan’s mouth, he winces. For all his prior unprofessionalism under the guise of charm, Mingyu has proven awfully handy so far. And not ...quite as insufferable as Seungkwan had convinced himself he was. 

Seungkwan sighs. “I’m sorry. Historically, I am not… the best under pressure.”

Mingyu raises an eyebrow and rubs at his eyes theatrically, blinking hard and squinting at Seungkwan. “Boo Seungkwan-ssi? Is that you? Admitting a fault?”

Involuntarily, Seungkwan snorts and shoves at Mingyu’s arm, trying not to laugh. Mingyu, annoyingly, physically does not waver. But the sparkle is back in his eye, and Seungkwan can live with that, even if Mingyu is needlessly, maybe even offensively, tall for an academic. “Don’t get used to it,” Seungkwan sniffs exaggeratedly.

Grinning, Mingyu says, “I’ll try to contain myself.”

“This trip is full of firsts for the both of us, then,” Seungkwan says, raising one eyebrow and letting one side of his mouth quirk up in a way he hopes reads only bemused.

“Like this conversation?”

“What do you mean?” Seungkwan asks warily.

Mingyu shrugs, throwing Seungkwan that little, tight-mouthed smile again. “I mean, before this moment I could count the words you’ve said to me in the past year and a half on both hands, Seungkwan-ssi. The day you asked me to hand you the volume on patterns of culture without realizing it was me went into my agenda as a notable event.”

His tone is light, almost joking, but Seungkwan’s not laughing. He knows he’s been curt, but wasn’t going for  _ standoffish,  _ necessarily. Just… acting in the interest of self-preservation. Too many times Seungkwan has been too accommodating to people who undermined him, outright stole work, didn’t treat him like a peer, took advantage of his kindness, and he isn’t about to make that mistake again. Not with so much on the line.

But still. There’s a difference between reticent and rude, succinct and spiteful. A cavernous one. So Seungkwan supposes he can throw Mingyu a bone, at least to make the time they have to spend here a little more bearable.

“All right, then, Mingyu-ssi,” Seungkwan says, “Let’s talk.”

•

Seungkwan is beginning to get a strange feeling about this place. 

Firstly, he doesn’t remember ever telling Mingyu to fill every beat of silence between them with sound. Even if Mingyu does bounce on the balls of his feet when he talks about his research, which is actually somewhat interesting, not that Seungkwan would ever admit it. It makes sense, considering they’re in the same department, and have bodies of work that overlap enough to get them placed on the same excavation expedition, but a few commonalities here and there do not a foundation make, and he knows he’s not offering much in return.

Despite all that, though, Mingyu does keep allowing him to pause, watching Seungkwan run his brush over cleared areas atop broken-off stalagmites and place more excavation markers where he sees potential artifacts buried, but as they meander through each tunnel and exit out into increasingly wider cave openings, things are… different. Less buried. 

Something about it doesn’t feel correct, but Seungkwan doesn’t know enough about geology to refute it. That he’ll leave to Jihoon.

He peers closer to a small organic shelf in the wall, shines his flashlight into it where something shiny glints in the opening, but he can’t quite reach it to see. Mingyu’s arms are longer than Seungkwan’s, maybe he can pull it out if it’s sitting on top, just extract the specimen with tongs without excavation. Seungkwan has a handful of little jars that would be perfect to hold onto it.

“Mingyu-ssi, come look at this.”

The sound pongs around, even though Seungkwan asked quietly, yet he gets no response.

“...Mingyu-ssi?”

Seungkwan’s voice echoes cleanly off the cave walls, whatever mineral composites the surfaces clearly not very porous or absorbent, or something like that. Mingyu mentioned it in the last cavern. Seungkwan thinks about potential predators in this clime, tries to remember Wonwoo’s briefing on flora and troglofauna in the region, and takes a step back to where Mingyu is.

Or was.

“Mingyu!” Seungkwan shouts, nearly dropping his bag as he breaks out into a run toward where Mingyu is gazing at a patinated bracelet, gathering his fingers to slip it over his wrist. “Are you out of your fucking mind? You’ll get tetanus! Look at it! That thing is probably poisonous!”

He ungraciously knocks the bracelet to the ground with the head of his flashlight, and as it rolls in a ring along the gritty floor, the sound of it is… not  _ right _ . Even with all the stone shards and grime, it’s too bright, like chrome-gold on ceramic tile, and Mingyu’s eyes follow it as it wobbles to a stop. 

If you had asked Boo Seungkwan if curses were real when he was writing the paper that got him placed on this expedition, he would have laughed. But from what he’s seen now, he’s not so sure.

Seungkwan circles Mingyu’s wrist with his fingers, or tries to; Mingyu’s arms are deceptively built in his button-up shirt, and Seungkwan pushes up one sleeve slightly to inspect the skin that nearly brushed the bracelet. It’s dusty, of course, and he runs a thumb firmly over the vein to make sure nothing irritating is spreading up Mingyu’s skin.

“I turn my back for one _ second,  _ Kim Mingyu!” Seungkwan starts with a hiss, and wills his voice to sound less frantic and more reproachful.

His hands are small in Mingyu’s as he turns over Mingyu’s broad palms, and, as suspected, Mingyu’s fingertips look a little raw, though whether that’s from the splintering wood of the small chest open in front of them, or from holding the bracelet itself, remains to be seen. 

Weirder still is that Mingyu hasn’t said a word. His gaze seems faraway, and the path of his eyes is stuck on the glint of the bracelet some six meters away. Seungkwan’s jaw tightens, but his next reprimand dies in his throat, and he rummages in his bag for their canteen.

“Hyung,” he tries.

Mingyu’s eyes blink languidly, and Seungkwan unscrews the cap of the canteen purposely slowly, letting the metal threads ring against each other to try and pull his attention. 

“Hyung, drink some water. Please,” Seungkwan grits out, and manages not to roll his eyes with either the honorific or the plea. If the situation weren’t so dire, he would probably physically pat himself on the back. But as it stands, Kim Mingyu is Seungkwan’s best chance at getting out of this godforsaken tomb, and he has worked too hard, done too much research, to let this… this  _ man  _ ruin everything.

The fact of the matter is becoming increasingly obvious: they do it together, or not at all.

A shuddering breath pulls into Mingyu’s chest, and Seungkwan lets out a breath of his own when Mingyu takes the canteen from him. Seungkwan stares at Mingyu’s face as he drinks, takes in the bob of his throat and the shape of his jaw, up to his eyes, which look a lot clearer now, so Seungkwan looks away, takes a step down their path.

Mingyu lets out a little gasp when he swallows, but Seungkwan doesn’t look back, just waits a beat. “I’m sorry,” Mingyu says, voice hoarse.

That’s… unexpected.

Seungkwan sets the flashlight down onto a ledge and crosses his arms, trying to channel stern energy, like the Dean of Social Sciences after midterm exams. He says firmly, half into the wall, “Do you realize how dangerous that was? You have no idea what that thing could have done to you! You could have gotten hurt!”

And if Mingyu had gotten hurt… Well, Seungkwan doesn’t want to think about that. At least Mingyu has the wherewithal to look chastised, even as Seungkwan feels his cheeks heat up.

_ We would never get out of here, for starters. _

“I don’t know what happened. It just… called to me,” Mingyu says dazedly, and takes another sip from the canteen. He looks down at it, then back up with panicked eyes at Seungkwan. His voice is small when he admits, “I drank most of this.”

“I asked you to,” Seungkwan says with finality, like that ends the conversation.

It seems like it does. 

Mingyu takes a few steps, tucks the canteen back into Seungkwan’s bag, then picks up Seungkwan’s flashlight from the ledge. Being taller, the light throws further, and Seungkwan feels the corners of his mouth tuck into his cheeks, the ghost of a smile. Useful, is all it is.

He uses his now-free hands to pull out their map, knocking his shoulder against Mingyu’s chest to wordlessly pull the light closer. Seungkwan exhales a frustrated puff of air as he walks their path with his fingertips. They’re still at least several hours away from where the projected exit is, if it’s even still there, uncovered by rockslides or booby traps or whatever the fuck kind of surprises this place has in store for them, and they’re already almost out of water. Seungkwan doesn’t glance up at Mingyu – knows he’s looking anyway – and rolls up the map tightly, binding the little leather cord in a neat bow.

“We need to get to the waterfall due southwest of here. Moving water carries less risk and if we aren’t going to eat much we at least need to stay hydrated.”

Mingyu sighs deeply, a resigned  _ I know  _ that Seungkwan is starting to lack the energy to fight. So they look at Mingyu’s compass and they walk on.

They move in relative silence, the only sound their footfalls echoing down the seemingly endless ravines, hands running lightly over the walls for something to hold onto.

•

After what seems like hours, and probably is, Mingyu says, “We have to stop.”

“Stop what?” Seungkwan says, ignoring the weariness in his own voice. He absentmindedly toys with a fray on his shirtsleeve, ragged from where it caught on some rocks when he and Mingyu had to crawl through an opening barely the width of their shoulders to keep following the compass.

Grabbing for Seungkwan’s arm, Mingyu catches his wrist with a warm, callused hand. “Stop walking. We need to take a break. The waterfall should only be a few minutes from here if we keep routing west, and then I think we should eat and try to sleep.”

This… unfortunately makes sense, and just the word  _ sleep  _ makes Seungkwan’s eyes heavy with exhaustion and reminds him of just how badly his feet ache in his steel-toed boots.

“Okay,” he says, and squints a few feet in front of him, where the shadows in the dust look even more tenebrous than they did a moment ago. Seungkwan shakes the flashlight, the incandescent bulb flickering weakly in his hand before hissing softly and dying in his hand, plunging himself and Mingyu into darkness. “Less okay.”

From steps away, Mingyu takes a deep breath, and Seungkwan hears him crack his knuckles. “Hang on,” Mingyu’s disembodied voice says in a tone Seungkwan imagines is supposed to be reassuring, and for a brief moment Seungkwan does fantasize about Kim Mingyu and his giant hands. 

Envisions Mingyu snapping his neck and ending this worsening nightmare.

Luckily enough, the next best thing happens, and there’s a tear of paper, a few little striking sounds and a flicker, and suddenly there’s a little fire between them, down where Mingyu is crouched. He lets out a quiet chirp of success and grins up at Seungkwan, who raises his eyebrows approvingly.

Seungkwan looks around, using his legs to roll a log closer to the fire, sweeping thankfully-dry kindling to feed the flames. He rummages around in his bag and retrieves Mingyu’s bags of nuts, tossing one to Mingyu, who does not catch it, but picks it up and dusts it off on his almost equally dusty shirt. Seungkwan lets out a ragged groan of relief when he takes a seat on the boulder, feeling all his bones settle into place.

This has been a long day.

Moving to sit down across from Seungkwan on the log, Mingyu winces and gets up slightly, sweeping a hand over the surface, dusting it off for splinters and God knows what else.

Humming a little, Seungkwan says, “Should have done that before you sat down.”

Mingyu sighs neutrally and nods. “Probably, but hindsight is 20/20. I’ll look next time.”

And something about the simple agreement rubs Seungkwan the wrong way, and it’s not just the insinuation that there’ll be a next time in this cavern. It’s more than anything the plain way Mingyu acquiesces to his suggestion, rather than pushing back. Seungkwan can’t stand it, the not knowing, the not understanding.

He bursts out, quiet but insistent, “Why  _ now  _ do you listen to me, now that we’re trapped in an endless maze of history and horror? It only took two years of being on the board together for you to even look me in the eye with any regularity.”

“What are you talking about, Seungkwan? I always listen to you! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t care that you’re younger than me. You have more experience and insight than anyone else on this team, in our whole department, even, and you think no one is out there pounding pavement and standing up for you besides you, but it’s not true. You have this chip on your shoulder but you never even gave me a chance to look at the crags.”

Seungkwan blinks, and Mingyu’s cheeks are pink, and he’s looking down toward their little fire, giving the dusty boots at the ends of his long legs a very focused stare. A stare Seungkwan knows intimately, the  _ anywhere but at you  _ stare, and something falls into place, fits together and unlocks like a key in an old chest.

“Mingyu-hyung,” Seungkwan starts carefully, and observes the way the glow brightens on Mingyu’s ears and cheeks. One could attempt to attribute it to the heat of the fire, but the ambient cold around them offsets it too much for that to be the case. “Can you tell me what happened at your faculty panel?”

And he doesn’t need to elaborate, because the way Mingyu looks up at Seungkwan, eyes round and face drawn, tells him that he knows exactly what he’s talking about.

“Out of professional courtesy…”

Seungkwan  _ laughs,  _ his fullest, most inappropriate cackle, and it pongs around the stalactites when he wheezes, “You think we’re still upholding standards of professional courtesy here? After everything we’ve gone through the last two days? God, that’s cute.”

Mingyu’s face burns red like the clay caked into their boots. And Seungkwan meant it in a ‘precious’ sort of way, but Mingyu looks all gold in the flickering embers, and he’s wearing that insufferably earnest face he always wears, so he supposes his bases would be covered, were Seungkwan to expand the intended meaning. Or whatever.

“Is that day really why our interactions are so terse?”

Shrugging, Seungkwan considers the question. 

Mingyu spent the whole hour of his research presentation behind the podium, body language tense as could be, hands gripping the mahogany of the podium and pointedly refusing to look at Seungkwan, both the closest panelist and the youngest by far. And when his presentation was over, while the content during was stellar, well-researched, and charismatically delivered, all that preparation went away when it came time for the question and answer portion. And then he had all this… personality, and that bright smile no matter what Seungkwan threw his way, and. And. He had to test it, see just how far he could push. Not Seungkwan’s finest quality.

“You  _ grilled  _ me for fifteen straight minutes, Seungkwan! You showed me intimately that you didn’t think I was capable of handling the volume of research your department conducts, and I didn’t know why, when you pitched so soft to the person who went before me. Tell me his research was better than mine, more thorough or better presented.”

It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Seungkwan’s silence answers that question, until he says, dropping honorifics, “You couldn’t even look at me. What was I supposed to think, Mingyu?”

Mingyu, to his credit, doesn’t rise to the bait, and instead just gazes long into Seungkwan’s eyes. Seungkwan just recrosses his legs and stares right back, ignoring the aching heat running magma down his spine at the look on Mingyu’s face.

He continues, “And then your handshake was so weak, like you couldn’t even show me respect after all that fighting.”

“My hands were sweaty! I was embarrassed! You kept  _ looking _ at me like that, and I didn’t think I could ever recover from the unbelievable bingo of ‘hard-on in an academic professional setting,’ and your subsequent behavior showed me that I was absolutely right to think that,” Mingyu says, hibiscus pink.

Seungkwan opens his mouth to reply, but the only sound that comes out is a choked laugh, a punch of an exhale. “Sorry, what?”

Mingyu’s eyes widen impossibly more, then, and he finally,  _ finally  _ snaps his mouth shut, just to open it again to say, voice tight, “What do you mean, what.”

“Did you say—”

“Did you not know—”

They talk over each other, then pause together. Their gaze holds, lips parted half-through their jumble of phrases, and Seungkwan’s eyes flick down to where Mingyu’s chest is heaving with labored breaths under his half-open shirt.

“Do I really have to—”

“Wait, Mingyu, shut up.” Seungkwan stands, taking quick steps to kneel at Mingyu’s side, leaning in close.

“What? I—”

Interrupts Seungkwan, “Hyung! You said you listen to me? Then listen.”

He reaches up and starts to unbutton Mingyu’s shirt, pushing his suspenders off his shoulders to take the shirt off entirely, and Mingyu stammers unintelligibly, eyes huge, a shiver wracking him when Seungkwan runs the flat of his hands over his pectoral and down his right arm, where there’s a shimmery-soft oxidized violet climbing up his skin in a pattern like vines growing. It’s almost like the pastel pallor of veins under skin, but such a different hue, especially against the gold tones of Mingyu’s skin. Seungkwan feels lucky he noticed it.

“It’s because of the bracelet. You probably held it long enough for the curse to permeate your skin even if you didn’t put it on. And thank God you didn’t,” Seungkwan mutters, gently turning Mingyu’s arm in his hands.

“You said it was probably poison. You didn’t say anything about a curse,” Mingyu says, eyes glued to Seungkwan’s hands tracing the spidering purple pattern where the newest branches threaten to crawl over his shoulder and onto his chest. It has to be contained before it gets anywhere even close to Mingyu’s vital organs.

Seungkwan rummages through his bag to ensure Mingyu’s other shirt, the clean brown one, is still folded safely inside. The tears and stains on the one in his hand mean Mingyu’s unlikely to miss it anyway.

One end of the fabric in his teeth, Seungkwan grits out, “Wishful thinking. What the fuck do I know about poisons or curses? My specialty is classifying anthropological artifacts, and also, need I remind you, curses aren’t real.” He tries to say it with confidence, punctuates it with a tear of the linen, pulling it taut to get one long strip of it from the hem of the shirt. “This is gonna feel tight, so take deep breaths, okay?”

Mingyu nods, and Seungkwan presses a little ball of fabric to his skin at the brachial artery, wrapping the strip around twice and holding the ends tight where the knot will go. Seungkwan meets his eyes with a question, and Mingyu flexes his arm a little and nods again, so Seungkwan ties a tidy square knot and watches with relief as the pastel violet fades out a little bit above the half-tourniquet, descending back a little toward Mingyu’s elbow.

“Wow,” Mingyu says, and his eyes look a little glassy.

Seungkwan’s mouth presses into a line with uneasy satisfaction. Seokmin’s emergency field training was thorough, but it was still no later than a week ago, and he hopes beyond hope that the restraint holds, that he can protect Mingyu as long as it takes.

“You know any other good tricks?” Mingyu says, and the smirky giggle he lets out makes Seungkwan swallow, just to give himself something to do. Buy himself some time.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Seungkwan retorts, a beat too late.

Mingyu hums in the affirmative, “I would, actually,” and it’s Seungkwan’s turn to pinken. 

Mingyu’s face is earnest, now, and there’s something so awful about how easily he slips from teasing to truthful, how easily sincerity comes to him, because it means Seungkwan has been butting against this man for years over perceived slights, and either he figured himself out over the years or Seungkwan had it wrong from the beginning.

“Well, if we get out of here I’ll show you sometime, how’s that?” Seungkwan mutters, standing up and dusting off his knees as an excuse not to look Mingyu in the eye. Or in the bare chest. They need to sleep, anyway.

“When,” Mingyu says.

Seungkwan rolls his shoulders, trying to stretch out his screaming muscles. “When what?”

_ “When _ we get out of here you’ll show me. Promise?”

Blinking in surprise, Seungkwan turns to see Mingyu’s eyes like saucers, sleepy and sincere, glowing up at him with a warmth not unlike the fire, now a step from Mingyu and four away from Seungkwan. Seungkwan shoves the empty bag from his mixed-nut dinner into his satchel along with whatever emotion he just experienced.

And he wasn’t going to honor the request with a response, but when Seungkwan opens his mouth, he finds himself murmuring, “Sure, hyung, I promise.”

As he curls up between the fire and the boulder, Seungkwan adds like an afterthought, “Don’t forget to put your clean shirt on before you sleep. Don’t know what kind of fucking… poison beetles are out here. Probably cursed beetles.”

Mingyu’s responding laugh is sleepy and low. “Those pretty iridescent red ones weren’t on Wonwoo’s specimen briefing.”

They are kind of pretty, Seungkwan thinks. “If beetles can be cursed, it’s definitely those.”

“Not everything pretty is bad for you,” Mingyu yawns in a considering tone. “Goodnight, Seungkwan-ssi.”

“Goodnight, hyung,” Seungkwan says quietly. He opens one eye just slightly, peering through his eyelashes to catch a little smile flickering over Mingyu’s face as he snuffs out the fire, then shuts his eyes tight.

•

Their canteen is full when Seungkwan wakes up, soft diffused light spread over the cavern, and he wastes no time chiding Mingyu about it.

“You went down to the waterfall without me?” Seungkwan grumbles, rubbing his eyes and letting the image of Mingyu, wet hair and puppy-frown, burn like embers into his retinas as the first thing he absorbs. It’s too much, honestly, and Seungkwan wishes he could just go back to sleep and let the beetles take him.

“Yes,” Mingyu says warily.

Seungkwan sits up fully, glaring up at Mingyu. “That was dumb of you.”

“If I had known you wanted to come I wouldn’t have gone to all that risk making you disgruntled,” Mingyu says, a little bit of bite to it. He shakes his head and steels his gaze, as though a good night’s sleep and a drink of fresh water was all he needed to get him back into fighting shape.

Seungkwan rolls his eyes. “No, I’m  _ disgruntled _ because it was a stupid idea to climb down there alone with your arm like this. I don’t want you aggravating it and getting injured any worse, you’re being reckless.”

This quietens Mingyu, and he finally looks chastised. “Oh.”

Oh, indeed. Satisfied with his victory, Seungkwan unscrews the cap of the canteen and takes a sip, the cool water rushing through his body like he’s the cavern and it’s back in the waterfall.

“Thank you,” he remembers to say, and Mingyu nods, failing to stifle a grin. Seungkwan pulls a face, sticking out his tongue at Mingyu, who laughs. Awful.

He does his stretching routine, groaning when he bends over to touch his toes, but Seungkwan is trying not to strain himself any more than physically necessary. When he sees the state of his limbs he knows Seungcheol is going to look at him with that disappointed face, but Seungkwan thinks maybe he deserves a pass this time. Seungkwan stands up and shakes out his legs, and swears he sees Mingyu whip his head around to pointedly not look at him, but Seungkwan is long past trying to understand Kim Mingyu. 

“According to our map we’re only a few hours out from the exit,” Mingyu says hopefully.

This time yesterday Seungkwan thinks he would have demanded to see the map himself, hold the compass, do it all. But now he just nods resolutely and suggests, “It’s supposed to be a bit deeper in before we emerge, right? We can’t rely on ambient light all afternoon. Do you think we could make a torch or something?”

Mingyu hums thoughtfully. “Probably, even though I suspect the royal ‘we’ just means ‘you, please, Mingyu.’”

“Well, you’d be wrong,” Seungkwan huffs, cracking a smile at the surprise on Mingyu’s face. “I wouldn’t say please.”

Laughing, Mingyu says, “That’s the Boo Seungkwan we know and love,” and drops to his knees, tying more of yesterday’s shirt to the top of a decent-sized stick and rolling it in the sticky sap piling below a stalactite. It’s not methodical or anything, but there’s a finesse to it that’s appealing. Not appealing, but attractive. Not  _ attractive.  _ Just—

“Got it!” Mingyu declares, his face turned up triumphant and glowing all elated in the light of his torch. “Let’s go! The sooner we get going the sooner we’re out of here!”

And, he’s right, logically and factually, but something about it gives Seungkwan pause.

It stays in the back of his mind, an uncharacteristic finality and a wistfulness to it that thrums under Seungkwan’s skin, even as he and Mingyu walk for hours, chattering all the while. It’s… nice, to fill the silence with jokes and laughter despite their situation. There’s some sort of buoyancy about it, and yet a weight settles into Seungkwan’s body, both at once. 

Seungkwan’s eyes widen and he lets out a choked shriek when Mingyu stops them quietly, pressing his palm against the wall of the cave and letting a scarlet-red, winged beetle scuttle across his hand. He picks it up, giving it a gentle ride on the back of his hand, fingers delicate as he holds it up to the light. 

The look on Mingyu’s face, awed and fascinated, and the way his expression doesn’t change when he shows it to Seungkwan, make Seungkwan chew on his bottom lip. He doesn’t want to break this moment, he wants to pick it up with specimen tongs, brush off the dust, preserve it forever. Reaching into his bag, Seungkwan fishes out a little jar, the one with the mesh-texture lid, and opens it, lets Mingyu carefully usher it inside before tightening the lid and handing it over.

Seungkwan wonders when things stopped feeling simple, when he stopped feeling  _ can’t wait to get out of here  _ and started feeling  _ I hope things are different when we’re out of here.  _

He considers Mingyu, cradling the jar in his good hand and balancing the torch with the other, and realizes a beat too late that the air has changed, that he paused too long to pinpoint it and now Mingyu is too far away, but nothing about this split-second moment feels right anymore.

If Seungkwan were thinking clearly, he would have called out. 

Yelled, “Move!” or shouted Mingyu’s name. But the lack of sunlight, or the extended proximity to Kim Mingyu, or just... something about these caverns has gotten to his brain, because Seungkwan hears the little _click,_ out of place in the dripping quiet, and swivels his head in time to see a suspiciously organized horizontal line of little openings appear on the wall and his only reaction is _run._

Mingyu is too far away, he’s not safe. 

Seungkwan takes off at a sprint toward Mingyu, and all he can hear is the little  _ thwip  _ of the first arrow in the series behind him, and the roaring of his blood in his ears. Mingyu must hear his urgent footfalls, though, because he turns, face illuminated with the torch, and his face changes. He shoves the jar in Seungkwan’s satchel where it’s slung over his shoulder and sets down the torch, but he’s not moving.  _ Why isn’t he moving? _

“Go, go!” Seungkwan manages to yell after too long.

The arrows keep launching, and Mingyu fucking  _ waits,  _ holding out his good hand for Seungkwan like a relay. Seungkwan’s feet beat a relentless rhythm into the dusty floor as he sprints closer closer closer to him, and when he approaches he grabs for Mingyu’s hand, lacing their fingers like their lives depend on it. And they kind of do.

_ Come on, come on, come on,  _ Seungkwan’s brain and his heart pound in time with his pace, Mingyu keeping in perfect step with him as the arrows seem to launch unfathomably faster from either side of them.

“What could have triggered this?” Mingyu heaves between heavy breaths.

Seungkwan doesn’t know, and he doesn’t have the faculties to even begin to answer, not when his air supply is screaming through his lungs and the whizz of arrows screams between them. All he can hope is that they’re going the right way, that the last day and a half of journeying have brought them close to the finish line, that Mingyu’s hand stays tight in his and they can do this, and they can make it out.

Together, or not at all.

“There!”

‘There’ is an inlet, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it person-sized opening in the wall, and without hesitation Seungkwan pushes Mingyu through first, following as closely behind as he possibly can, pressing his face into Mingyu’s back.

They burst through the path, flooded with light, and collapse against the stalagmites, crumpled together along the wall. For minutes, years, eons, all there is is the thundering roar of their ragged breathing and Seungkwan’s forehead knocked against Mingyu’s, and all the adrenaline in Seungkwan’s body crying  _ he’s safe, he’s safe. _

“Oh, God,” Seungkwan says when he can manage it, and feels a watery prick behind his eyes, so he keeps them squeezed shut for fear of openness. Their tightness echoes in the viselike grip of his fingers in Mingyu’s. He thinks maybe if he lets go he’ll stop breathing. “Oh, God.”

“Seungkwan, you’re bleeding.” Mingyu gasps suddenly, and Seungkwan is almost unsurprised, eyes opening slowly. His gaze follows Mingyu’s to a spot below his ribs, his khaki shirt blooming damp with maroon.

Seungkwan knows better than to touch it, letting out a hoarse little laugh instead. “I sure am,” he says, taking one step, then a second, before his knees shake and he leans against the wall instead.

Mingyu’s hand tightens unforgivably in Seungkwan’s, then releases altogether, quick like a lightning strike.  _ Wish you wouldn’t let go,  _ Seungkwan thinks, then laughs aloud at how ludicrous that is. It’s Kim Mingyu, and they’re in a cave maze, and Seungkwan is bleeding profusely from an arrow wound, and things are all going a little blurry around the edges. He lifts his head, looks around for a moment just to get his bearings, and oh.

“Mingyu,” Seungkwan says, and it comes out like a question.

Swallowing, Mingyu smiles. It’s a façade, and Seungkwan knows because he’s very good at putting them on. “Yes, Seungkwan-ssi?” he replies, a teasing lilt to it. A bandage plastered haphazardly over the worry.

“We’re close to the end? It’s there?” Seungkwan points to the opening that’s backlighting Mingyu, casting a golden halo around his sweaty face and dirty, pushed-back hair.

Clearly, Mingyu hadn’t noticed it. He turns his head to look, and laughs, a manic laugh of relief that tells Seungkwan it’s okay to close his eyes and lean in close. “Yeah, that’s it, Seungkwan-ah,” he says, and something is tight about his voice when he pulls Seungkwan close. “We’re there.”

Seungkwan reaches a hand up, peeks his fingers under Mingyu’s eyelashes with as much finesse as he can muster despite the ever-growing, throbbing pain at his side, and feels wetness gathering there.

“Don’t you dare say anything,” Mingyu mutters warningly, and Seungkwan laughs weakly, but doesn’t, because he’s worried the thick, teary feeling in his throat is going to rise up and spill out of his eyes too, and then where would he be? Crying in Kim Mingyu’s arms, steps away from freedom, and that’s not how Seungkwan wants to go out.

So he grits his teeth and takes another step, then another, and lets Mingyu support his weight as they hobble closer.  _ I hope things are different when we’re out of here. _

There are two iridescent beetles, wings shimmery and red, dancing around each other in the corner of his eye, and when the air changes, the opening swallows them, and that first ray of sun burns its beam into Seungkwan’s skin, he collapses.  


•

Seungkwan gasps awake suddenly, and the first thing he realizes is how he can’t see anything because his vision is hot-white with light.  _ Oh, right. The sun. _

“Whoa, easy, Kwan-ah!” Seokmin is shushing him.

Seungkwan jolts up, wincing at the dull ache radiating from his side. Seokmin presses at his shoulder to lie him back down, and Seungkwan throws an arm over his eyes. “Don’t treat me like a fucking horse, Seok-hyung,” he grits out.

Seokmin laughs, pushing Seungkwan’s shirt up to his ribs to look closer at the wound and replace the dressing. “Good to know Danyang Caverns didn’t break your spirits, just your bones.” Seungkwan’s face must look alarmed, because Seokmin’s eyes go wide. “Sorry! Turn of phrase! Your bones aren’t broken! Seungcheol said they’re good!”

“Oh, thank God,” Seungkwan breathes, then sits up, knocking Seokmin’s arm aside. “Wait, no, where’s—”

“Mingyu is fine. No bones broken, either,” Seokmin says, tone soft and a little apologetic.

Seungkwan feels his cheeks heat up, and the knowing eye smile Seokmin gives him makes him groan out a sigh. “How did this happen?”

The sun is going down, Seungkwan can tell from the way the light is moving in the tent, and he’s torn between pride and worry. Seokmin has never judged him, and probably never will, but something in Seungkwan is curled up, protecting its young in his cavernous heart. Whatever it’s guarding is new. He wants to bare his teeth and keep it close.

Seokmin is the best, because he just smooths Seungkwan’s hair and says, “He’s in the other medic tent. I’m going to meet Soonyoung at camp center for dinner, I’ll have them save you some?”

“Thank you,” Seungkwan says with a stressed sigh, and Seokmin laughs kindly.

“Love you too, Seungkwan.” Seokmin is almost out of sight when he tosses over his shoulder like an afterthought, “You look awful. But you look… better.”

Watching Seokmin’s silhouette get smaller and smaller, Seungkwan swings his feet over the edge of his cot, taking a deep breath to feel the blood pulse through his veins, throb at his side. But he hops down gently, and pads quietly, bare feet through grass (grass! sweet, warm, soft grass!) toward the other medic tent.

No sooner does Seungkwan step through the threshold than Mingyu is up like a shot, quicker than a dart on wobbly legs. Of course his shirt is off again, because Seungkwan truly cannot catch a break, even if realistically he knows that it was for Seokmin to apply salve and administer the appropriate medical attention to whatever myriad poisons and curses the human body can withstand.

Realistically, Seungkwan also knows Seokmin is currently eating dinner with Soonyoung, and that that buys him a solid chunk of time, at least an hour, maybe even two if they really get to chatting, before it gets properly dark and Seokmin comes back to the medical area to offer Mingyu dinner, probably. 

So he moves in to check on Mingyu. That’s all.

“You don’t have to stand up,” Seungkwan laughs, his stomach tightening, but his eyes flicker between Mingyu’s chest and his hand white-gripping the edge of the medical cot.

“You came back for me?” Mingyu says, wide-eyed and pleased-surprised, but when Seungkwan stammers to think of a rebuttal to that, a little distracted by the golden sight before him, he smirks and tugs Seungkwan close by a beltloop. Fucking insufferable.  _ Kim Mingyu! _

Scoffing, but unable to keep the smile off his face, Seungkwan starts, “God, you’re so—”

Mingyu’s mouth swallows the rest of his sentence, whatever it would have been, if Seungkwan had bothered planning out what he was going to say, and his arms wrap around Seungkwan, tight as a vise.  _ God,  _ God, God, Seungkwan kisses Mingyu like a man starved, leaning up on the balls of his feet to let Mingyu devour him. The feel of Mingyu’s mouth against his is hot and breathy and so fucking good, and his hands keep  _ moving,  _ and Seungkwan’s only human.

He presses closer, ever-closer, with each passing second, like they weren’t just trapped in labyrinthine caves for days, no one but each other. Like Seungkwan has to compensate for each spike of adrenaline and swoop of fear he had when Mingyu was in danger in the tomb with a desperate, filthy kiss. Like he can’t quite say any of it aloud yet, so he has to trace it with his tongue against Mingyu’s, gasp it into his mouth when their hips knock together.

All he can manage is, “You gotta stop getting yourself almost killed, hyung,” Seungkwan pants, tilting his head to let Mingyu trail kisses down his neck.

Letting out an unbecoming squeak when Mingyu sucks hard at a spot well above his collarbone, Seungkwan half-hopes the old bats on the tenure committee see it blooming eggplant purple when he comes back, dares them to look him in the eye and say he hasn’t earned the right to it for everything he’s done for them. And this week isn’t even the half of it.

Humming sweetly, Mingyu murmurs, “Well, ‘almost’ isn’t anything without the risk,” and lifts his hands to unbutton Seungkwan’s ragged shirt, making sure to be careful of the bandage at Seungkwan’s side when he pushes the linen over Seungkwan’s shoulders. “This is sexy,” he says.

It makes Seungkwan go warm all over, seeing Mingyu’s eyes soften and watching him trace his fingertips over the mottled muslin square under Seungkwan’s ribs, even as they’re both half-bare. A soft little thing that Seungkwan can tuck away in a private corner of himself, along with the peek of Mingyu’s teeth when he smiles, and the shape of the beetle from the cavern.

“I’m glad you think so, since it’s your fault I got it in the first place,” Seungkwan huffs, choking on the exhale when Mingyu pulls Seungkwan’s hands to his waist and leans in to kiss him again and again, messy and  _ good. _

Between kisses, Mingyu insists, “Well, it’s not like you were  _ stabbed, _ it was just an arrow, and an old one at that, I think the onyx they used for the tip had softened quite a lot due to the humidity, and—”

“I hope you start babbling something different when I fuck you,” Seungkwan says, and this effectively shuts Mingyu up with a whine.

“Oh, fuck. Please,” he breathes with eagerness, which makes Seungkwan laugh.  _ That’s more like it. _

Seungkwan tangles his fingers in Mingyu’s hair for purchase, gently pulling his head back and earning a breathy moan torn from his throat. There’s a promise glimmering in Mingyu’s eyes, something like,  _ when I’m not recuperating from an ancient curse coursing through my veins I want you to ruin me.  _ And Seungkwan wants to promise him right back.

“I like it when you laugh,” Mingyu says, dropping to his knees, Seungkwan’s hand still in his hair.

He leans forward into Seungkwan’s touch and mouths at the fly of Seungkwan’s fresh, clean jodhpurs, pressing kisses to the fabric just under his waistband. Seungkwan would laugh more, due to incredulousness, or the ridiculousness of the last few days, or the sheer disbelief that it all ended up here. He would laugh, if he weren’t so busy trying not to groan at the feeling of Mingyu’s tongue tracing the line where he’s growing hard in his pants.

Seungkwan’s hand tightens in Mingyu’s hair, soft and clean between his fingers, and Mingyu hums, a happy little noise. He reaches his good arm up to undo the button, and tugs Seungkwan’s pants and underwear down his thighs side by side in sort of a wiggling motion, which Seungkwan finds painfully endearing. He catches himself feeling fond, knows coral-pink heat is blushing up his cheeks at the emotion. 

He doesn’t have much time to dwell on it; Mingyu is palming at Seungkwan’s ass, rough warm fingers kneading at the flesh of it, and Seungkwan lets out a strangled sort of moan that only gets worse when Mingyu looks up at him with this smirky little look, eyes huge and pretty, and licks openmouthed down the length of Seungkwan’s dick, hand firm on his backside to keep him close.

“Jesus,” Seungkwan manages, and Mingyu  _ giggles,  _ working his hand over Seungkwan, and he has this dumb smile playing on his lips even when he’s getting his mouth around Seungkwan, sucking him off like it’s a… what, a reward? Something he earned?

It feels good, so good, he wants this so badly, but there’s something Seungkwan needs to say, needs to make sure Mingyu knows, really knows. And there are some things where, if you can’t say them with your cock nudging at the back of someone’s throat, it’s a lost cause.

Seungkwan is done feeling lost.

“Hyung,” gasps Seungkwan, trying not to chase Mingyu’s mouth with his hips as Mingyu bobs his head smoothly. He is far too good at this. “Hyung, I gotta—I need,  _ need, oh—” _

The plushness of Mingyu’s pink mouth is an unbelievable sight when he pulls off and sits back on his heels to relieve his knees, teasing, “Gonna come already, Seungkwan-ssi? So soon?” He sounds half-disappointed, and his pout is something awful. Seungkwan is overtaken with the deep desire to kiss it off his face.

It’s a testament to the way Mingyu has gotten under his skin that Seungkwan still scoffs disdainfully, even as his cock is hard, spit-wet and messy, and his heart is hammering in his chest. “No, you menace, I’m trying to tell you how I feel,” he says, the edge sharp with earnestness.

“Oh, is that all?” Mingyu says, and the words are teasing and cavalier, but the tone with which he says it is small, disbelieving, a little reverent, and, worst of all, excited.

Seungkwan smiles despite himself. “Yeah, that’s all. Is that all right?”

Mingyu wipes his mouth with the back of his good hand to smile back, big and goofy. “More than. Can we kiss some more?” he asks, and it makes Seungkwan laugh in agreement, so Mingyu pushes up to stand, giving Seungkwan a free moment to climb onto Mingyu’s cot.

The look on Mingyu’s face when he swings a leg over Seungkwan’s waist and leans down to kiss him again says it all, but something about it makes Seungkwan want to make him say it out loud. If not now, sometime. God knows neither of them can usually shut up anyway. And when Mingyu’s lips press against his, soft and sweet, Seungkwan lets out a sigh, sliding his hands over Mingyu’s stomach, his waist, his hips, fingertips skating over a few healed-over wounds, scars from months or years ago, by the looks of it.

“Make a habit of getting into scrapes?” Seungkwan teases gently against Mingyu’s mouth, running a thumb over a particularly nasty scar at the side of Mingyu’s tummy. Something like a blend of wonder and worry tangles in his own stomach about it.

Mingyu leans back and smiles, bites his lip a little, says, “Depends. Is it sexy if I say yes?”

Instead of responding Seungkwan rolls his eyes, and Mingyu’s reactionary laughter dies in his throat when Seungkwan’s hands move to untie his pants, palming him through the linen-cotton blend. He murmurs, “Wish you would be more careful, hyung,” and hears Mingyu hum softly in acquiescence.

He’s just so pretty. Mingyu lifts up onto his knees for a moment so Seungkwan can tug off what few clothes remain between them, and when he lets them flutter to the ground, gentle on the tarp, Mingyu is pushing his pillow closer to the small of Seungkwan’s back to prop him up.

“This an okay angle?” Mingyu asks, kissing his fingertips and pressing them gently over the dressing at Seungkwan’s ribs.  _ Fuck. _ “I want to ride you next time, but not now. This is going to get worse if I do.” And  _ that  _ sure sounds like a promise.  _ Fuck! _

Nodding, Seungkwan lets out a long exhale and smiles weakly at Mingyu. “I’ll be careful.”

The glint is back in Mingyu’s eye at that, and he leans over to feel around on the medical tray beside his cot. “Hopefully not too careful,” he says.

Rolling his eyes, Seungkwan pulls Mingyu in by the back of the neck for a rough kiss, the press insistent and somehow not nearly enough. When he pulls back a little, Seungkwan gazes darkly into Mingyu’s eyes, and a little shiver runs through Mingyu as Seungkwan’s hands run up and down Mingyu’s chest, thumbing roughly at his nipples and relishing in the airy way he whines in response. 

“You’re so capable, Seungkwan, so smart,” Mingyu says, pressing his hips into Seungkwan’s, and Seungkwan lets out a strangled noise at Mingyu’s dirty talk, but Mingyu presses on, breathing into his ear, “You came alive in there.”

“Don’t imply I’m some sort of, fucking, ah,  _ ah, _ mole-person while our pants are off!” Seungkwan squawks indignantly, scrunching his eyes closed when Mingyu sucks a bite at his neck, imagining there’s a smile to it.

Head tipped back, Mingyu doesn’t really address the (completely appropriate, honestly) complaint, just kicks back on his knees a little to find a better angle to slide his cock against Seungkwan’s. Which is a reaction Seungkwan might be able to understand, considering the low moan he lets out himself and the way his hands fly to Mingyu’s hips, gripping hard.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined you like this,” Mingyu moans, and Seungkwan feels his face flush even warmer than before.

“Wish I could say the same,” he manages to tease, and Mingyu glares at him, tipping out the little bottle of lubricant between them and hissing at the feeling. The obscene sound of the slick movement of their hips against one another is filthy and fantastic, and it makes Seungkwan want to be at least a little honest. “But now I don’t think I’ll be able to get it out of my head.”

Mingyu bites his lip. “That’s more like it,” he breathes, rolling his hips shamelessly, gorgeously.

With each passing moment Mingyu is letting out all these breathy, giggly little whines, rocking in Seungkwan’s lap, and Seungkwan is gripped with the unfortunate realization that he would do anything to make him keep making these sounds, do anything generally for Mingyu to keep looking at him like this, all warm and soft and pleased. It’s a lot to manage.

“Ah, ah,” Mingyu whimpers, arching his back as he desperately moves his hips back and forth, and Seungkwan is dangerously close to coming, but he wants to take care of Mingyu first. So his hips cant up to meet Mingyu where he’s moving desperately, taking one hand off his hip to wrap around Mingyu’s dick and start bringing him closer to the edge in earnest.

“Come on, hyung,” Seungkwan purrs. “Come on, baby.”

And it must be the term of endearment that does it, because Mingyu’s hips stutter and he comes with a keening whine over their stomachs, head tossed back and neck exposed, golden and smooth. Somewhere in his mind Seungkwan wants to remind himself to tease Mingyu about it later, but for now he just speeds up his hand on his own cock, watching with focused eyes as Mingyu comes down from his orgasm and blinks languidly at Seungkwan. He smiles at Seungkwan, a little shy but bright bright bright, and Seungkwan’s stomach tenses, and he tips over the edge with a cry.

When Seungkwan’s breathing evens out, Mingyu is half-holding him up with his good arm, the corded muscle flexing handsomely, and it makes Seungkwan want to roll his eyes at just how attractive this man is. On the other hand, what’s the point of playing coy at this juncture, except to save face? Seungkwan sucks in a deep breath, and offers Mingyu what’s undoubtedly a red-cheeked smile. He thinks maybe he doesn’t need to work so hard anymore.

As he leans forward, one hand at Mingyu’s jaw, Seungkwan wants to tell him somehow all the things he’ll get around to confessing for real eventually. But for now he kisses him slow and deep, and considers the fact that there’s nothing wrong with a little teasing, anyway.

“So… you were so turned on at your faculty panel by me being  _ mean  _ to you that you…?” Seungkwan eyes Mingyu with bemused interest, smirking and flicking his eyes up and down his body, even as Mingyu is wiping himself down one-handed with some degree of difficulty. It’s endearing, and Seungkwan is feeling a little too boneless to push the fondness down.

Mingyu groans and wiggles a little, clambering off Seungkwan and standing up to tug his pants on a little awkwardly. “Stop looking at me like that, I’ll get hard again.”

“You’re so embarrassing,” Seungkwan says, but he’s stifling a smile as he cleans himself off, eyes cast downward at his trousers. He can’t find his button-down, and it kind of hurts to bend, but as soon as he turns around, Mingyu is standing in front of him, Seungkwan’s clean(-ish) shirt clutched to the beautiful expanse of his chest, right over his heart.

“I think this belongs to you, Boo Seungkwan-ssi,” Mingyu says, ears pink but eyes shining.  _ Cheesy. _

He looks handsome, and open, heart glinting golden in the setting sun. Like something brand-new. 

Seungkwan wraps his arms around Mingyu’s waist and leans up to kiss his cheek, the brush of lips chaste and warm. “You know, Kim Mingyu-ssi, I think it does.”

•

  
‘Cursebreaker’ is not technically a job title. But ‘becoming the foremost experts on the long-term effects of poisons and minerals used by ancient and premodern civilizations’ is a little wordy, and, frankly, Seungkwan isn’t entirely convinced that the work that he and Mingyu do is purely scientific. More than once there’s been something much more powerful at play.

At the very least, he understands now that no science, even social science, can be done without being driven by passion, something he and Mingyu certainly are no strangers to.

And there’s just something about Kim Mingyu that makes Seungkwan want to get sentimental.

“Curse-free, guaranteed,” Minghao says slyly, sliding the little velvet box across the desk to push against Seungkwan’s open palms.

Seungkwan snorts. “Don’t say that too loud, you’ll disappoint him.”

Minghao rolls his eyes and takes off his spectacles, leaving them dangling from his neck on their chain. “You don’t have to tell me twice, he told me about the brass and garnet ring.”

Hiding his face in the box as he opens it, Seungkwan says, “You fuck the curse out of a man one time and it’s the only story he ever tells.” 

“I wish it was the only story he tells,” Minghao mutters, but Seungkwan barely registers it. Inside the deep red of the velvet box lies a blanket of gauzy brown silk, atop which rests a gold brooch. Their beetle, the genuine exoskeleton, scarlet chitin surrounded by nouveau-style gold, wings outstretched.

Seungkwan pulls Minghao into a hug. “It’s perfect. Thank you, hyung.”

Patting Seungkwan on the back kindly, Minghao says, “Of course. It’s not every day I get to be the first jeweler to use a newly-discovered and named specimen in his work,” and he grins when he pulls away.

And it sounds transactional, but the proof it’s the opposite is in the way Minghao settles comfortably into Seungkwan’s big leather chair, legs spread like he owns the place, and in the way the tinsel and garland are carefully strung around his office, put up with the warm, steady hand of someone much taller than Seungkwan.

It’s in the way Hansol crowds in next, Chan and Jisoo in tow, and the way they waste no time uncorking the champagne, Chan deftly catching any overspill in another glass rather than letting it drip onto Mingyu’s desk and making his work all sticky. It’s in the way Jisoo has one broad hand at the small of both of their backs but still winks at Seungkwan when he fiddles to tie a bow around his little velvet box.

It’s in the way Seokmin and Seungcheol had shifts at the university hospital they couldn’t miss, but left their gifts for everyone with Soonyoung, who burst into holiday song the moment he stepped through the doors of the Social Science building, his musical bellow making the china cabinets filled with Seungkwan’s unprocessed artifacts rattle  _ just  _ a little worryingly, and in the same hand making everyone groan fondly before he’s even in the office for the party.

But more than anything it’s in the way Mingyu’s eyes light up when he walks into their office, hearing the crackle of the record player in the corner crooning his favorite holiday ballad, and in the way he greets everyone warmly but opens his hand above Seungkwan’s face to reveal very bruised mistletoe.

“You didn’t,” Seungkwan says with a groan, scrunching up his nose with fond embarrassment.

“But you want to kiss me,” Mingyu singsongs, with, annoyingly enough, perfect emotional accuracy, so Seungkwan does, with a hand to the back of his neck and more fervor than they’re usually allowed at school.

Seungkwan’s heart races a little, but his other hand feels steady where it holds the little red box behind his back, and the smile on Mingyu’s face lets him know that maybe opening himself up was the right choice. He feels good about it.

Making some progress, doing something greater than himself. Unfurling vermilion wings, iridescent in the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/pixiepowerao3) and [curiouscat](http://www.curiouscat.me/pixiepower/)!


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